


East End Lights

by FluffyBeaumont



Category: Rocketman (2019), Rocketman (2019) RPF
Genre: Anal Sex, Bromance to Romance, Friends to Lovers, Hot Weather, M/M, Oral Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, RPF, Romance, Song Lyrics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:40:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25435546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FluffyBeaumont/pseuds/FluffyBeaumont
Summary: Linda has packed up and left; Bernie and Reg are living in the flat together. Bernie strips down because it's so hot, but Reg is reluctant until Bernie takes him in hand.
Relationships: Elton John/Bernie Taupin
Comments: 3
Kudos: 25





	East End Lights

**Author's Note:**

> This fic combines the world of Rocketman with some real-life details from Elton and Bernie's personal history, including Elton's engagement to Linda.

_When I think of those East End lights/Muggy nights/The curtains drawn in the little room downstairs…_ “Someone Saved My Life Tonight”. John/Taupin ©1975 

July, in London, an absolutely searing night, without even the slightest breeze to lift even a little of the humidity. They’d been sat together in the one room for ages, watching something uninteresting on telly and drinking ice cold cans of lager. Bernie, confident and easy in his own skin, had stripped to his boxer shorts, and was busy pressing the cold can of beer against the back of his neck. He glanced across the room to where Reg sat in the easy chair, looking like he’d been dropped from a height. Unlike Bernie, Reg was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt. “You look hot,” Bernie commented, “and uncomfortable. Why don’t you get your kit off? It’s just me and you here.”

Linda – she of the pickled onion empire and the tiny dogs and the horrible disposition – had packed up and gone, leaving Reg and Bernie in the flat themselves, and happier for it. Neither one of them lamented her absence, Reg least of all. They’d been a mismatch from the start. Linda never understood him and she couldn’t stand Bernie. What was that old adage about three children never being able to play properly together? Two always took against the third. It was the natural order of things, and Bernie’s loyalty would always lie with Reg.

“Not on your life,” Reg said. He raised his head, and the room’s dim lighting glinted off his spectacles. “That’s the last bloody thing I’d want.” He laughed abruptly, a noise without any mirth in it. “Last bloody thing anyone would want is to see me in the all-together.”

“It’s hot,” Bernie said. “It’s _bloody_ hot and you’re sitting there wrapped up like it’s the middle of winter. For Christ’s sake, why don’t—”

“No.” 

“Tell me why.” 

Reg subjected him to a long look, then dropped his gaze. “I’m not like you, Bernie. I’m…my body’s ugly.” 

“Reg…” Bernie hated it when Reg talked this way. It was his mother’s fault, he knew, her and that fucking bastard of a father. Always criticising him, picking at him, poisoning his mind. Thanks to them, Reg was convinced he was the ugliest thing that ever walked. “That’s not true.”

“Yeah, it is.” His voice was flat, empty, resigned, and so was his expression. He had no idea, Bernie thought, how bloody _beautiful_ he was. He couldn’t see what others saw: the depth of his soft brown eyes with their long, thick lashes, his beautiful mouth, the dimple in his chin…the broad, strong shoulders tapering down to a muscular chest, the bulging biceps in his upper arms and his hands…those hands that pulled such gorgeous melodies from the piano. He couldn’t know that Bernie fantasized about laying him down and licking him all over, then making love to him, kissing every inch of his smooth skin…that Bernie wondered what his face looked like when he allowed himself to be absolutely vulnerable with someone who loved him, what he looked like when making love, what he looked like when he came.

Bernie reached across to the lamp closest to him and switched it off. Reg glanced across at him. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Proving a point,” Bernie said. He rose from his chair and went across to the pole lamp, standing near the door, and switched it off. Then he moved towards where Reg was sitting and turned off the lamp on the table next to Reg’s chair. The entire flat was dark, save for the small light burning above the cooker in the kitchen. “Now,” Bernie said. “No one can see you.” He held out his hand to Reg. “Come on, then.”

“Come on, what?”

“Up.” 

“Me?” 

“We’re the only two here, Reg.” Bernie advanced towards him slowly, his hand still outstretched, his barely visible face soft and gentle, his voice low. “It’s time to get past it, now, the lies they told you, your father and mother.”

“Dunno what you mean,” Reg replied, but he stood up anyway. The streetlight streaming in through the windows illuminated his face. “Bernie, are you all right?”

“Perfect,” Bernie murmured. He reached out and lifted Reg’s glasses off his face, very gently, and laid them down on a side table. “You remember the night I came home and you’d your head in the oven?” 

“Course I do,” Reg replied, sheepishly. “I fucked that up right and proper, didn’t I? Couldn’t even…fucking kill myself, I…Bernie, what is this about?”

“You scared the shit out of me, Reg. I came home and saw you like that. I knew there was no real possibility of you actually dying. That’s not what scared me.” Bernie raised a hand and brushed Reg’s cheek, his thumb scraping on stubble. “What scared me is that you felt so shitty about things that you figured that was a viable solution.”

“What?” Reg leaned into Bernie’s hand, eyes closing, those incredible long lashes lying against his cheeks. He sighed as Bernie’s fingers moved to clasp the back of his neck, drawing him close. “Bernie, you don’t have to…”

“I want to.” Bernie leaned in and captured Reg’s beautiful mouth with his own. He’d waited a long time for this, had dreamed about it, but the sweetness of it sliced him nearly to the bone. “I love you, Reg. I’ve loved you since the moment I laid eyes on you and nothing will ever change that.”

“Jesus, Bernie…” Reg laughed. “You don’t half give a person a start.” He gazed at Bernie in the semidarkness. “That was a hell of a kiss,” he said.

“Come to bed,” Bernie murmured, tugging on Reg’s hand. “It’s much too hot tonight with all those clothes on.” 

The windows were open in Reg’s bedroom, the one he’d lately shared with Linda. A slight breeze had sprung up, stirring the net curtains. Bernie lifted the hem of Reg’s t-shirt and pulled upwards, and Reg raised his arms, helping him. His naked chest was furred with dark hair, and his pink nipples were taut when Bernie bent to lick each one to hardness. Reg shuddered, holding Bernie’s head to him, his fingers sliding into Bernie’s hair. “Oh God,” he breathed, “Oh God, oh God, oh God.” He shuddered as Bernie dropped to his knees, mouthing the swollen bulge of Reg’s cock through his jeans. His buttocks clenched as the heat of his desire rose from the bottom of his belly and his hips jerked forward, thighs shivering. “Bernie.” He yelped as Bernie’s agile fingers unzipped his fly and delved inside, freeing him, and then his cock was engulfed in moist heat. Bright streaks formed and burst behind his eyelids as Bernie sucked and licked, swirling his tongue around the head of his cock, drawing his body’s secret moisture to the surface.

Bernie leaned back, letting his swollen cock slip out of his mouth. “Take me to bed, Reg.”

“Are you sure?” 

Bernie smirked. “Reg, I’ve just had your cock in my mouth. Trust me, I’m sure.” He pulled Reg’s jeans down the rest of the way and helped Reg lift each foot in turn, freeing himself. “I’ve waited a long time for this.” He stood up.

“Really?”

“Reg…stop talking.” 

Bernie laid him down on the bed and stripped his boxer shorts off, pausing to drop them on the floor. He removed his own shorts and lay next to Reg, reaching to take him into his embrace, tangling his legs with Reg’s, wrapping his arms around him. He wanted Reg so much it hurt. He wanted to crawl inside Reg and stay there forever, live in him, wrap himself in the heat and pulse of his beautiful being, exist in the music and beauty that he made. “Bernie…?” Reg’s voice was ragged, ravaged by desire. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

“I’ll make it up,” Bernie replied, leaning in to capture Reg’s mouth in a searing kiss. He slipped his tongue into Reg’s mouth, tasting him, flicking the edges of his teeth, his palate, before withdrawing. He slid down, tonguing Reg’s nipples and listened to Reg groaning, shivering in delight as he heard his best friend’s breathless exclamations of desire. He’d gone to a special shop in King’s Road the day before and purchased something in anticipation of this, and he flipped the cap on a small tube, slicked his fingers with the slippery substance. “D’you trust me?”

“Yes.” A rough whisper, and Reg’s hands on his shoulders, drawing him down for another kiss and then another and then another. Bernie’s thighs were wet with his own precum, his belly throbbing, his desire sending bolts of electricity rocketing through his body.

“Tell me what you want,” Bernie said. 

Reg gazed at him, his long-lashed beautiful eyes wide in the darkness. “I want you to fuck me.” 

He lay on his back, offering himself, spreading his muscular thighs wide, his swollen cock bobbing against his belly. Bernie reached with two slick fingers to breach his entrance, sliding inside, unerringly finding that secret place inside of Reg that lit him on fire and opened him. “Are you sure?”

“Please. Fuck me.” The need in his voice undid Bernie completely. He spread lube on his fingers and smoothed it over his own hard cock, then moved towards Reg, easing himself inside an inch at a time. He had fucked women before but never another man and he was unprepared for how _tight_ and _oh God! Hot!_ the inside of Reg was, how snugly he fit. It occurred to him that this was serious; this meant something, and he could never, ever take it lightly. Reg was giving him something eminently precious, opening this hidden part of himself to Bernie, because he trusted him.

Because he loved him.

The night shattered into a thousand fractal images as they moved, sweating bellies pressed together, Bernie so deep inside him, balls-deep, soul-deep. Reg’s face was twisted in pain and ecstasy, mouth open, eyes squeezed shut as Bernie fucked him, slowly at first, then faster. Reg’s fingers dug into Bernie’s shoulders and Reg was coming, shouting, his cock spurting cum that fountained up between them, painting both their bellies with it, hot and sticky-sweet. Bernie’s hips stuttered in their rhythm, faltered, as Reg’s inner muscles clenched around him and he was _there_ , pumping his essence deep into the man he loved more than anyone on earth.

He came to rest against Reg’s chest, his face buried in his best friend’s neck. He was close to weeping, shuddering, murmuring unconnected words over and over: _love you, God, Reg, loved this, want you, darling, oh my God._ And Reg turned his face and kissed him, a long, deep kiss that Bernie felt to the marrow of his being.

“We should have done this ages ago,” Reg murmured. His hair was wet with sweat, sticking to his forehead. He looked absolutely sated and so very beautiful.

“Agreed,” Bernie said. “And we should definitely do it again.” 

“We should,” Reg replied. “I love you, Bernie.” 

“I know,” Bernie said quietly. “And I love you.” 

“Still bloody hot, though, isn’t it?” Reg commented.

“Bloody hot,” Bernie agreed. “We’ll probably need to do this again before morning.”

“We will,” Reg said. “We absolutely will.” 


End file.
